Debian Announces Sarge Will Include GNOME 2.8 276
El Cubano writes "A recent posting to the debian-devel-announce mailing list announces that Sarge will release with GNOME 2.8. From the announcement: 'After requests and a detailed proposal from the GNOME team, we accepted
an upload of GNOME 2.8 into sid, and, via the usual mechanisms, into
sarge. We should mention that the release team was running out of
objections to GNOME 2.8 in unstable that the GNOME team hasn't
satisfactorily addressed; this, and the fact that they have demonstrated
good reaction times of late are the main reasons why we're approving it
despite the timing.'"
Sarge Will Include GNOME 2.8 (Score:5, Funny)
Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Debian "stable" vs. unstable seems to match the new RedHat "Enteprise" releases vs. the new "FEdora". Maybe Debian can shorten their transfer time and testing enough to use "stable" for production servers? I know a bunch of people who'd like that.
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I run stable on my little home server, eagerly awaiting the release of Sarge.
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
The solution in this case is backports.org.
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
2) Cron does not work and I'm to lazy to fix it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
So build or backport 'em yourself. Builds character and stuff.
http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ [debian.org]
There is a bit of a learning curve, but it's much more satifying to install your own packages than to just give up and throw a tarball into your nicely managed system.
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:2)
Re:Is Armagaedon upon us? (Score:4, Informative)
The Debian "stable" vs. unstable seems to match the new RedHat "Enteprise" releases vs. the new "FEdora". Maybe Debian can shorten their transfer time and testing enough to use "stable" for production servers? I know a bunch of people who'd like that.
We [awarix.com] [beware of the Marketing people's use of shockwave and flash] already do that. I'm sure many others do to. We count on stable being secure and reliable. We're ok with it being relatively slow moving, if that's what it takes. A few select applications, such as X11VNC [karlrunge.com] are brought in from testing or unstable, or made into custom packages internally. It works great.
We would like to see some newer software make it's way into stable, such as subversion. Right now I run a mixed testing/unstable at work, and a mixed unstable/experimental at home. I've never had a problem, though I do take time to understand what the effects of an update will be on the unstable and especially the experimental applications.
Just run a chrooted Debian sid on stable (Score:2, Interesting)
My point being that you get the best of both worlds. It is ridiculously easy to set up a chroot jail in Debian. "Google and ye shall find."
KDE (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that it really matters anymore - many of whom have been waiting for Sarge have got with the program and switched to Ubuntu [ubuntulinux.org].
Re:KDE (Score:5, Informative)
Re:KDE (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh yeah, and KDE has none of these problems that people are reporting with GNOME. Snappy performance on a Pentium II Mobile 400MHz. I daresay even snappier than the install of Windows 2000 SP4 on the other partition.
There is no reason why people running personal Debian desktop systems shouldn't liberally add Sid packages to their system. What Debian.Org calls "unstable" is actually ready for prime time on non-critical machines.
If you run a critical server, go with Woody aka Stable. If you can live a little on the edge with your server, run Sarge/Testing/Release Candidate. If you are setting up a desktop for Grandma, use Sarge with no Sid packages. For everyone else, live on the edge, baby! ^_^
Re:KDE (Score:2)
It says that they were asked about KDE 3.3, but felt it was too buggy ("The main reason is that KDE 3.3 in unstable started with some RC bugs".) They also mention that big upgrades of both KDE and Gnome at the same time would be harmful to their sanity...
Re:KDE (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:KDE (Score:2)
No, surprisingly I only have an x86.
Re:KDE (Score:2)
good for debian, good for users (Score:4, Informative)
Also, this might help combat the "Debian [stable] never includes new stuff" meme. Another good thing.
Re:good for debian, good for users (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, this might help combat the "Debian [stable] never includes new stuff" meme. Another good thing.
"New" is relative. After stable switches from Woody to Sarge, it is highly unlikely that you will get a new version of GNOME until Etch becomes stable. So no, Debian stable will never be the place to look for new stuff, except when the stable version changes, but then that is the whole idea.
Re:good for debian, good for users (Score:3, Interesting)
Apart from that, it's all really quite nice. I'm looking forward to running UserLinux though.
Re:good for debian, good for users (Score:2)
FYI (Score:4, Funny)
Re:FYI (Score:5, Funny)
If it's a Debian Garden Gnome, you'll have to leave it in the back yard until it's weathered and outdated, and then move it to the front yard after it's demonstrated its stability for two years...
applicable Star Wars quote (Score:5, Funny)
OWK: I felt a deep disturbance in the force. It was as if Debian decided to be more current with their packages.
Almost time for regular users to run testing (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently took the plunge and converted a couple of machines to testing (soon to be sarge). First thing I will say is that even with all of the backports, the upgrade went very smoothly. And I'll also say that sarge is working well for me; so well that I've installed it on several other machines using the new debian-installer rc candidates, and that has worked flawlessly for me as well!
As soon as security update support is up and running for testing, anyone remotely interested in sarge should consider upgrading and filing bug reports as appropriate. This is how you can help speed up the "real" release of sarge!
And I do think that when sarge comes out, it's going to be an excellent platform. It is so much nicer about hardware autodetection, font handling, and about a million other things... Without losing any of the old things that you love about Debian.
Lets hope that the next stable release doesn't take too long, although given Debian's nature, it's hard to see how it won't... Assuming the official compiler moves to gcc 3.4 (or the upcoming 4.0), then there is going to be another painful transition for all of those C++ applications. Hopefully someday g++ will have a stable C++ ABI and those transitions won't be an issue for projects shipping C++ libraries... (This was one of the major issues for getting KDE into unstable earlier this year.)
Re:Almost time for regular users to run testing (Score:2)
It's not support for security for testing in general, but in preparation for the release of sarge.
Re:Almost time for regular users to run testing (Score:2)
In general I agree with you - there's usually not much point to running testing. But given the imminent freeze and upcoming release of sarge, testing is a good place to be right now. In fact, running it is one of the only ways to help debug the sarge release... Getting lots of people to do live upgrades and file bug reports when they have problems is important to having the best new stable release possible.
Re:Almost time for regular users to run testing (Score:2)
Testing has been working great, no problems at all, and I got to see it getting better and better with each update I performed.
Re:Almost time for regular users to run testing (Score:2)
x.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:x.org (Score:3, Informative)
See the news item "Future of Debian X11 Packages" in this issue [debian.org] of Debian Weekly News
Re:x.org (Score:5, Informative)
Re: You like the cup, drink from the cup. (Score:2, Informative)
The X Strike Force [deadbeast.net]
To sum it up, Debian is maintaining it's own tree of Xfree86, without any material that has the new license, but with some x.org and other patches. This is what will be in Sarge.
Re:x.org (Score:2)
How about these? (Score:3, Insightful)
PHP 5,
Tomcat 5.0.x (5.5 would probably be pushing it a little..),
Sun jdk1.5?
Re:How about these? (Score:4, Informative)
PHP 5 probably still has some issues to be worked out, meaning it won't get into stable.
I don't know about the others.
Re:How about these? (Score:2)
I haven't been in the army... (Score:4, Funny)
Release date (Score:3, Funny)
Now that's a first (Score:3, Funny)
Well... we'll still have to wait for Sarge to be released as STABLE. That could take another while...
Re:The problem with Debian is they set no deadline (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Debian is they set no deadline (Score:2)
Then at some interval determined by market requirements, marketing approach you and say "We need another release to call 5.0". You take a look at your recent internal releases, pick one that has a good blend of reliability and features, and hand them that to label "5.0" and give to QA. If QA fail it, you can pick another one to try. If QA pass it, it gets a "5.0" sticker
object orientation (Score:2)
Re:object orientation (Score:2)
I mean, COME ON debian, how many times have they said that its going to be released 'Real Soon Now'... I've been hearing that for over a year.
Re:object orientation (Score:2)
As a Debian user myself... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want stability, testing provides plenty of it. If you don't want to update often - just don't update (often). If you really need rock solid core stability, but want newer desktop software - then run stable with apt-pining for testing or unstable, and only install what you know you want from testing/unstable.
If you want a Debian desktop with frequent releases without all this crap, use Ubuntu
Stable is supposed to be the rock solid hardware, and the only things that should change should be when there's a bugfix or security fix. The point of it is you can basically rest assured that when running updates, shit won't ever break. I don't mean just "PAM broke!" break, I mean config overwritten, changed options, etc. break. The system for all intents and purposes could be set to automatically grab updates and run for years.
Disclaimer: I've never used Ubuntu, I'm a Debian man who suffers the trials of using apt-pining just like everyone else who wants this should have to!
Re:As a Debian user myself... (Score:2)
Testing is rarely usable. In fact, it's often more broken than Sid, or at least the broken state lasts longer with Testing. YMMV.
If you want a Debian desktop with frequent releases without all this crap, use Ubuntu
I agree. Ubuntu has been very solid for me, and I wouldn't be surprised if even Hoary Hedgehog went stable before Sarge.
Re:As a Debian user myself... (Score:2)
Really? I've been running it on several machines (desktop and server) for most of this year and it has been rock-solid for me. What has broken for you lately?
Re:As a Debian user myself... (Score:2)
Dependencies between packages have been broken - I've been unable to install various packages because their deps have not been available. This rarely happens with Sid, which is what I'm running on my "server" role machine.
Re:As a Debian user myself... (Score:2, Insightful)
If I was rolling out a set of desktops for corporate usage, stable is ideal. You don't want testing, which is prone to breaking dependancies (unless you're near freezing time), nor do you want unstable - you don't want to be troubleshooting brand new packages, you need them to just work.
With stable, you have rock solid security support, very few if any changes, and all package upgrades are tested far more than any other rep
Re:As a Debian user myself... (Score:2)
If you stick with stable, will you be stuck with bugs in packages that are fixed in a minor point release of the pacakged software? This could get annoying if so: the users either have to live with the bug or you have to create custom packages, defeating the point of using the distro in the first place.
For example: OpenOffice 1.1.2 has some annoying bugs in it that are fixed in 1.1.3. If I installed a stable debian release with 1.1.2, would 1.1.3 eve
WTF is Sarge? (Score:2)
someone want to define (or at least provide a link) to wtf "sarge" is in this context?
Yes, I could google for it, but (1) I'm too lazy and (2) that's really the editor's job, isn't it?
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:3, Informative)
I've never had that problem with Gnome. My system is as responsive with Gnome as my previous operating systems: Win98se and WinXP. Are you sure your system is okay?
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
I have one of those multimedia keyboards, with volume control buttons on it. Since the volume knob on my speakers isn't working properly, I tend to use the keyboard to adjust volume. Problem is, if the sound is too loud, I will try to immediately lower the volume, and it takes approximately 5 seconds for GNOME to respond.
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Perhaps you have a configuration problem, a really slow computer, etc...
BTW, Windows on the same machin
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:3, Interesting)
I like gnome2.8 and use it at home for the family. For that use, its unmatchable, even against windows. I use KDE3.3 at work for development.
Here is what I have personally seen though in gnome2.8:
When using the file chooser, it is possible for it to not use / as the root directory when browsing in some cases. It is also possible to click on your home directory on the left and completely lose access t
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
The stutter in the run command is definitely a problem. No disagreement there.
I've never had particular issue with FF on any of my machines (including a P3 1GHz notebook), but it wouldn't surprise me if Konqueror seems faster as KDE precaches it on boot, the same trick IE has used for years. Personally, I'm not sure if I'd support hacking a similar feature into Gnome for Firefox/Epi
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Famd works well with Nautilus.
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2, Informative)
I understand that most Linux GUI apps do indeed start up more slowly than their Windows counterparts, due to the fact that they must be dynamically linked(?). Pre-linking apparently speeds start-up time considerably. Gentoo is supposed to have excellent support for pre-linking apps (which must be fully recompiled whenever one of their compent libraries is updated, in contrast with the dynamic(?) linking mod
buffer overruns (Score:3, Insightful)
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/libc-alpha/2000-08 / ms g00052.html
GNU/Linux programmers have a bad track record on this issue. Not to mention safer languages. Consider the little attention a mainstream language like C# has gathered in the community (I won't even mention other languages that achieve C-like performance such as SML or Common Lis
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2, Funny)
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2, Informative)
While I agree with the sentinent, I cannot but hasten to warn that strncpy is evil, and it should almost never be used. Why? It doesn't zero-terminate, so it might turn a C-string into a non-C-String, with hilarious results.
I assume several C-String libraries must have been designed and built over the years. But I none seems to have prevailed for whatever reason. Which is a bloody shame, because C's string (mis)-handling are a trategy, so messy and unclean in such a nice & clean language. I wonder why?
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2)
The problem is careless programmers. It doesn't matter if you build a safe alternative to strcpy; as long as the original is still laying around looking handy, careless programmers will use it. I mean, strncpy way predates GNOME, so frankly if there are any strcpy calls in GNOME's code base the offending programmer ought to be taken out and shot.
Re:buffer overruns (Score:3, Informative)
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2)
Once the users start moaning that package-foo.1.2.3 fails with Unknown function: strcopy, or whatever, developers will soon moving to the new calls.
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2)
Re:buffer overruns (Score:2)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
In reality I have seen X respond very well on systems were windows wouldn't fit even if you used a sledgehammer. On what kind of setup is your experience based? Are you sure it was really X that was slow or the tookit you used?
Jeroen
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
What was slower? Did it take longer to hit the floor when you dropped it? Did you drop X, or did you drop X+KDE+GNOME+OOo+JVM?
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:3, Informative)
In Windows, the application that is in the foreground (with the currently active window) actually gets a scheduler priority boost from the operating system.
Under Linux, this is not the case.
What does that mean? In Windows, interactive applications are snappier, but the background programs lag more. If you're running Windows, right-click on My Computer and hit Properties.
Go to the Advanced tab and hit the Settings button under Performance. Go to the Advanc
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2)
Re:I have been waiting for this (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You cannot prove the nonexistence of something (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You cannot prove the nonexistence of something (Score:2)
I assert that operator+ does not exist in my programming language. See above for proof.
It is possible to prove the nonexistence of something, but it requires that the entire context is known. For real-world problems (like does God exist) the entire context is not known. One problem, of course, is knowing at which point the entire context is known
Re:Anonymous coward is confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Situation now:
potato = obselete
woody = stable
sid = unstable
sarge = testing
Once sarge is declared stable,
woody = obselete
sid = unstable
sarge = stable
unknown = testing
So, sid will remain unstable and a new name for the testing branch will have to be decided (unless I missed something and that's already happened).
Re:Anonymous coward is confused (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anonymous coward is confused (Score:5, Informative)
And for most users, at any one point in time the Unstable one offers the best tradeoff between features and stability. The current situation is that Sid is unstable, Sarge is testing and Woody is Stable.
Real Soon Now, they'll all shuffle along one, Woody will die and Sarge will become stable. I run sarge on my home and work machines and it's completely rock solid.
Re:Anonymous coward is confused (Score:2)
Re:Anonymous coward is confused (Score:2)
Sorry, but announcements from Debian that sarge will go stable 'real soon now' usually seem to mean 'next year some time'.
Re:Actually, they switch names... (Score:4, Informative)
unstable will always be called sid. i.e.:
stable -> slink
testing -> potato
unstable -> sid
stable ->potato
testing -> woody
unstable ->sid
stable ->woody
testing -> sarge
unstable ->sid
stable ->sarge
testing -> etch
unstable -> sid
sid never changes.
Re:Actually, they switch names... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, go watch Toy Story...Sid is the unstable next door neighbor with a tendency to blow stuff up. Debian unstable is aptly named.
Re:E? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:E? (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry for the confusion - I was referring to 'stable'. I use unstable, mainly because it has all of that stuff. (Excpet E17 :)
Seriously, I should put something about "inspect message for sarcasm before replying" in my sig.
Re:E? (Score:2)
That wouldn't help. Many people -- myself included -- don't see signatures. And thank goodness because some people write such drivel in them.
Re:Sarge and Subversion 1.1.x Branch Fiasco Contin (Score:2)
Opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one, and no one wants to look at the other guy's. This is why it's such a good thing that we have so many distributions. When someone tells me they need a Linux-based server, I send them to debian. Any other use, and I send them to gentoo. If you want up-to-date packages, gentoo should be your first choice. Debian is for people who ne
Re:Sarge and Subversion 1.1.x Branch Fiasco Contin (Score:2)
So... a philosopher would kinda be like... a proctologist?
Re:Sarge and Subversion 1.1.x Branch Fiasco Contin (Score:2)
Re:WTF is Sarge? (Score:2)
Then again, since tried GNOME and switched to KDE for performance and stability reasons, I also didn't give a flying one...